THIRTY-THIRD BlENNIAT SESSION 
23 
RESPONSE FROM THE SOUTH. 
G. L. Taber, Florida. 
It seems to me peculiarly fitting that our American Pomological So- 
ciety should meet in our nation’s Capital, where, if anywhere, we should 
feel and be at home. It is also, it seems to me, peculiarly fitting that our 
neighbor, the Dominion of Canada as well as different sections of our own 
United States should be represented in offering response to the cordial 
words of welcome to this place at this time. We take it that the greatest 
honor we as guests can do our hosts is to accept thankfully and uncondition- 
ally the very hospitable welcome they have accorded us. This we do; and 
for the present week at least their home shall be ours. 
The time of year is near upon us when this word home — hallowed be- 
yond others because all hallowed associations center around it — has attached 
to it a peculiar significance. It will be but a few days before, gathered 
around our individual firesides, or those of our own kith and kin, we shall 
be celebrating and, we hope, in the proper spirit, the Thanksgiving day so 
wisely set apart for that purpose. Here, in our united capacity, in one 
large home represented by many smaller ones, we expect to be imbued, in 
advance, with this same Thanksgiving spirit. From East and West and 
North and South we are gathered together and, from each and all of these 
sections, some of our choicest fruits have been garnered to grace and dec- 
orate our Society’s Thanksgiving table and to celebrate our biennial home- 
coming. 
Mr. President, with your permission I want to tell a story; a true story, 
a short story and one that begins in the good, old fashioned way of “once 
upon a time.” Well, then: Once upon a time, a good many years ago, never 
mind just how many, there was a short boy, on top of a tall ladder, picking 
apples, in a snow-storm, in his native State of Maine. The picking of the 
apples, which were of winter varieties, may have been delayed later than 
it should have been and, again, perhaps the snow came unusually early that 
year but, at any rate, the boy was picking apples and it was snowing. His 
basket was hung by an iron hook to one of the topmost rounds of the tall 
ladder and, with limbs, ladder, boy and basket swaying back and forth 
in the wind; with snow pelting him in the face until he could hardly see; 
and with fingers chilled till they would hardly work; he clung, as boys can, 
or could at the time of which I am speaking, to twigs or limbs or ladder, 
and, all through that long, bitter day, just picked and picked and picked. 
He helped to save a crop of fruit that surely would have been frozen that 
night, and he was not only very proud of that but, also, of the fifty cents 
which he got for his day’s work. I have often heard that boy say that fifty 
cent silver-piece looked bigger to him than any he ever received, either be- 
fore or since, and, also, that he thought he earned it; that he must have 
picked at least five dollars worth of apples, perhaps more. 
Now, Mr. President, for fear that our hosts might never guess it, and 
to avoid future misunderstanding, I am going to tell them and you a secret. 
That small boy was and is I; for although that was many years ago I can 
feel the frost in my fingers yet. I now not only live in the South but in the 
southernmost State of the South and, during the past thirty odd years, have 
seen but one snowstorm — and have no desire to see another. I love my 
